Empyrion I: The Search for Fierra

by Stephen Lawhead

  “From Everlasting the Golim have sought me. The oversouls of the departed stand naked before me.”

  “Trabant be praised!”

  Yarden looked and could not keep herself from looking. The voice altered, took on a slightly higher pitch, became female. At the same instant the eyes and mouth became a female face attached to a female form. The body wore a glistening, filmy raiment and floated just above the iridescent clouds. The sky behind the figure convulsed with vibrant color, melding from red to blue to green to orange and back again almost simultaneously. The woman spread her lithe arms wide and said, “Come to me. Bring me the gift of your minds. Make your wills a fragrant sacrifice. Feed me with your desires. Put your flesh on the bones of my perfect way.”

  “Trabant be praised!”

  “Your praises are the liquor of sweet communion. Your bodies are the mansions of my pleasure. Come to me that you may know me as I know you. Taste the life that death steals so quickly.”

  “Trabant be praised! Trabant be praised! Trabant be praised!” The voices of the celebrants rumbled in unison, escalating in volume as their features quickened. Many were standing now, reaching out their hands toward the floating pyramid. “Trabant be praised!”

  Yarden felt herself rising toward the figure, her arms stretching out to the opened pyramid and its vibrating light, pangs of longing overwhelming her. In her mind the Trabant Woman looked at her with half-closed eyes, a sensual smile on her full lips.

  “Come to me,” she said breathlessly. “Consummate our love on the altar of pleasure and delight. Come to me.”

  The Trabant parted her lips with the tip of her tongue. Her head tilted back as her hands spread the shimmering garment and held it open, revealing full breasts, a firm, flat stomach, and shapely thighs. “Come to me.” Trabant’s voice was a whispered seduction. “Come … to … me!”

  Yarden felt an ache in her loins, and her hips began moving rhythmically as around her the entire congregation swayed together. Her hands played over her body and then other hands joined hers. Yarden opened her eyes and saw that a man stood before her, stripped to the waist, his skin glistening in the rosy light of the pyramid.

  She moaned. The man’s hands were under her yos, roaming over her body, and she felt her flesh alive under his touch. She pressed herself against him, and he embraced her. Their mouths met hungrily and Yarden yielded to the kiss, clutching at her unknown lover.

  The voice of the Trabant, now husky with passion, spoke inside her head. “I am your master. Feel me inside you. I will never let you go!”

  An image of unspeakable horror flashed in Yarden’s mind. She saw a vast host of corpses rising from a putrid swamp, writhing as decaying flesh fell from their long bones. The corpses mingled and, began to caress one another, lipless teeth against shiny bone.

  Bile churned up into Yarden’s throat as a staggering wave of revulsion swept through her. The man before her, now naked in her arms, grasped her and pulled her to him. A dread as powerful and black as any she had ever known descended upon her, and she thrust the man away. He pulled at her, clawed her, his face contorted with lust.

  “Give me your body!” demanded the Trabant. “Give me your soul!”

  “Don’t give in!” Yarden recognized the voice as her own, even though she did not know herself to have spoken. “I won’t give in!” she said louder.

  The Trabant became even more insistent. “Worship me and I will fill your life with pleasure. Come to me—let me satisfy all your longings.”

  Never! Yarden struck at the man before her with all her might. She caught him off balance as he pressed toward her, and he went down on his backside. Yarden whirled and pushed into the aisle, now swarming with the sprawling, convulsing bodies of men and women mingled in grotesque couplings. Stumbling over the conjoined pairs, she fought her way up the aisle to the doors where she crouched unseen and tried to push from her mind the awful ceremony being consummated around her.

  Hold out, she told herself. They can’t touch you as long as you don’t give in to them. Hold out!

  The last of the metal doors slammed shut behind them as Treet and Calin emerged from the debris-littered passageway that led to the Archives. Two Nilokerus sentries stood at their posts, looking bored and indifferent. Neither of the men gave them so much as a cursory glance, staring ahead, faces nearly covered by their crimson hoods. As Treet and his guide moved abreast of them, however, one of the guards stepped forward. He had a hand on Treet’s arm before Treet knew what was happening.

  “You will come with me, please,” said the man, pulling Treet close. “Quickly! There is not much time.”

  Treet jerked back, but the man hung on. “What’s going on? Let me go!”

  Calin froze. “These are not Nilokerus!” she said.

  The other guard stepped up, taking Calin by the shoulder. “No, we are not Nilokerus. Come with us, please. We only want to talk to you.”

  “We can talk here,” said Treet, prying the first sentry’s hand loose from his arm. “Start talking—and it better be good and interesting.”

  The first guard signaled the other one, who released his hold on Calin. He slipped the hood back from his face. “We have information for you about your friends.”

  Treet’s head snapped up. “What about them? Talk!”

  “We are instructed to tell you—but only if you come with us,” answered the second sentry, still within clutching distance of Calin.

  “No, you have it backwards. First you tell us, then we go … maybe.” Treet put all the authority into his voice that he could muster.

  “The change of guard is expected any moment. If they find us here—” began the first.

  “Then quit wasting time and talk. So far you’re not saying anything interesting.”

  A glance passed between the two false guards, and the first one made up his mind. “Your friends are being held by enemies. We know where they are.”

  “Where are they?”

  “If you come with us, we will tell you.”

  “What enemies?”

  “Your enemies.”

  “I don’t have any enemies,” replied Treet. But that wasn’t exactly true. Everyone here was a potential enemy. “Calin, what’s he talking about?”

  Calin stared at the sentry. “You are … Dhogs.” She said the word as if it were lethal.

  Treet worked his mouth to speak. The first guard cut him off. “Listen!”

  Footsteps echoed in the corridor beyond. “The Nilokerus are coming. You must come with us now. We can tell you no more.”

  Treet still hesitated. “No. Tell me where my friends are.”

  “We will take you to them.”

  “You said they were being held by enemies. How can you take me to them?”

  “No time to explain,” said the second guard hurriedly. He gestured to the corridor. “Come with us now!”

  The footsteps sounded closer. Treet had to make up his mind. He was disinclined to go with the two men, but if it was true that they knew something about his friends—as apparently they did— if they could put him in touch with them—that was perhaps worth the gamble. “You will help me reach them?”

  “Yes,” replied the first sentry without hesitation.

  Treet glanced at Calin; she had overcome her initial shock. Whoever they were, the Dhogs did not frighten her. “Okay, we’ll go with you,” said Treet at last.

  Just then two figures appeared in the vestibule and advanced toward them. The false sentry nearest Calin put his hand under his yos and started to withdraw it. His companion telegraphed a quick warning with his eyes, and the man concealed the hand once more.

  The new guards came ahead slowly.

  “Go and wait for us at the end of the corridor,” whispered the first sentry. “Now!”

  Treet nodded to Calin and stepped forward. The two new guards looked at each other and then stopped them. “Is all in order here?” one of them asked.

  “They have the Supreme Director’s
authorization, Hageman,” replied the first false guard. “We have checked.”

  “Then be on your way,” said the Nilokerus guard to Treet.

  Treet and Calin continued on. As they reached the place where the vestibule joined the main corridor, they heard a voice utter a surprised exclamation. A sharp snap, like the crack of a whip, cut the air. A second snap sounded—an instantaneous echo of the first. Treet looked back in time to see one of the Nilokerus stagger and go down, his face smouldering. His companion, weapon in hand, was gazing in disbelief at a smoking hole in his stomach. The man toppled backward, his head cracking on the stone floor. The body rippled once and lay still.

  The false guards came flying toward Treet. He stared at the two bodies and at the sooty smoke still rising from their wounds. One of the men grabbed him and spun him away. “Hurry!” he shouted and Treet was yanked along the blue-tiled corridor, his mind reeling with the horror of the violence he had just witnessed. He felt his stomach squirm and heave; he swallowed hard and allowed himself to be propelled from the scene.

  THIRTY-THREE

  Yarden felt hands reach out to take her arms, felt herself being guided through the milling crush of bodies leaving the temple. Her eyes, soft and unfocused, stared dazedly ahead. She let herself be pulled along, unresisting, uncaring, her mind numb from the assault practiced upon it in the temple. She felt as if she had been raped.

  It had taken every last grain of strength to resist the insidious presence of the Trabant. She had escaped—barely—but was exhausted, unable to fight anymore. She would return with Bela and the others to the Hage, or they would go somewhere and perform. It didn’t matter. The Service—an orgy so hideous and unthinkable that her spirit recoiled from it as from the kiss of a corpse—was over and she had escaped. That’s all she cared about.

  They moved slowly down the long ramp, Yarden on wooden, unfeeling legs. Celebrants, sated and spent from their grotesque revelry, pressed in around her, but the hands still guided her. She turned to see who held her. “Bela?”

  “Shhh, say nothing,” instructed the woman beside her. She wore the turquoise and silver of the Chryse, but Yarden did not recognize her as belonging to their troupe.

  They reached the foot of the ramp, and two guides pulled her quickly away, dodging among the retreating celebrants as they hurried across the white square to the shelter of a standing row of trees. Something in their movements—so quick and furtive and sure— assured Yarden that these were not members of her troupe. They were strangers, and they were leading her away from her Hagemen.

  Let them take me where they will, she thought. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters anymore. I am lost.

  They came to a place along the path out of sight from those following. They stopped. “Will you come with us?” asked the foremost guide, still clutching her arm.

  “I don’t know you,” said Yarden, peering into their faces. What was that she saw there? Concern? These people cared about her. Why?

  “No, you don’t know us, but we are friends. We have been following you.”

  “You were …,” she hesitated, “in there?” She looked back. The temple was out of sight behind the sword-leafed trees.

  “No; we saw you go in and waited for you to come out. There are people who want to see you. They are your friends, too. They asked us to bring you. It isn’t far.”

  What would Bela say? she wondered. But at the thought she realized Bela did not care for her. When had she ever seen concern in his eyes? She remembered the wafer he had given her that morning. Had she taken it, she would have been incapable of resistance; she would have given in, become one of them.

  “Will you go with us now?”

  Yarden nodded. She had nothing to fear from these people. She could trust them far more than she could trust Bela. “Yes, I will go with you.”

  Then they were hurrying along secluded walkways, heading toward the winding river and away from Chryse deep Hage. Yarden kept pace willingly, though she had no idea where she was being taken. Whatever their destination, it would be safer than remaining with Bela and the others. Friends … safety—the words lifted the edges of the darkness that lay upon her soul. She felt her heart quicken with hope as she hurried on.

  Through the labyrinth of Saecaraz deep Hage, up and up through the levels, out across terraces, past Hageworks and many-windowed kraam blocks, over connecting skywalks and through deserted market squares the fugitives ran toward snaking Kyan. Their flight was fast but measured, their progress sure. There was a purpose to the apparent aimlessness of their trail, which Treet decided was to confuse any pursuit.

  When they reached the rimwalk at the river’s edge, they paused at a clump of tall bushes with long, feathery yellow branches which arched up gracefully to twice a man’s height. From a hiding place within the cluster of brown stalks, one of the guides tugged out a concealed bundle, opened it, and passed out black-and-gold yoses. He stripped off the Nilokerus garment and slipped on the new one.

  “Tanais,” said Calin. “I cannot wear this.”

  “Wear it,” said the first guide flatly. “A Tanais boat will come by here in a few moments carrying only Tanais. It will pick up three or four Hagemen—you decide.”

  “Hold on! Are you threatening her?” Treet turned on the man, his head half in the yos. He pulled it down and glared defiantly. “I won’t have it.”

  The man returned Treet’s glare icily. The other guide spoke up. “He is merely saying what must be. It is a Tanais boat and will carry only Tanais. If she will not come—” His glance flicked to his comrade’s hand beneath the yos.

  “You’d kill her? Like you killed those other two back there?”

  “We’d have no choice. She has seen—she knows!”

  Treet saw how it was. Their escape route was set up to handle few variables and no surprises. “Well?” Asked the guide. “The boat is coming.”

  “For crying out loud, Calin, get that thing on!” said Treet, snatching the yos from the man’s hands and shoving it at the magician. When she hesitated, he took it and yanked it down over her head. She did not resist. “There. It just isn’t worth getting killed over, okay?”

  Calin gave him a dark look, but remained silent.

  “All right, we’re ready,” said Treet. “What next?”

  “This way,” replied the second guide, shoving the Nilokerus yoses into the bushes.

  They continued on along the rimwalk, with the gray river to the right, the long elegant steps of terraces to the left. Soon they came to a place where the rimwalk dipped down close to the water as the river crawled around a sharp bend. “Over here,” said the first guide, scrambling over the stone breastwork.

  Treet dropped over the edge and landed on his feet. The boat, a square-nosed barge of medium size riding low in the water, rounded the bend and came directly toward them. Four Tanais Hagemen stood idly on deck. But as the boat neared the shore, the four sprang forward and produced a short gangway which they pushed out over the nose. As soon as it was close enough, the first guide leaped onto the plank. Calin scurried aboard, the second guide close behind her. Treet followed, and no sooner did the boat touch the bank than the engines reversed, and it pulled away again. As the boat drew away from the shore, the four who had been standing idly on deck ran out onto the gangway and jumped to the bank, the last one barely clearing the water’s edge.

  A complete exchange, thought Treet. Very tidy. And all in less than ten seconds.

  He looked around and noticed that this bend was fairly well hidden from the rest of the river. Also, a boat disappearing around the bend would be out of sight from the opposite shore until it emerged again on the other side. No doubt the place had been carefully chosen for that very reason. Every detail had been thought of—right down to the passenger exchange. These people were definitely not taking any chances.

  Treet remembered the two dead bodies and grimly reminded himself that the stakes were very high. How many more people would die before this was over? J
ust what had he gotten himself into? He crossed his arms over his chest and watched the scenery slide by as the boat pulled itself back out into deep water and continued on around the bend.

  They traveled against the current for a few kilometers, Treet guessed, before they entered a different Hage. He knew at once when they entered it by the change in architecture. He recognized the shapes of the buildings—tall, spire-shaped edifices with flying buttress arches—but couldn’t remember its name.

  “Calin,” he said to the magician beside him. She had not said a word since setting foot on the boat. “Where are we?”

  “Tanais Hage.”

  Was that resignation or despair making her voice so hollow? Treet turned and regarded her more closely. “What’s wrong?”

  “I am dead.”

  Her response startled him, and he laughed. “You’re what? Dead? What are you talking about? There’s not a scratch on you.” The mirth went out of his voice when he saw the bleak futility in her dark eyes. “You’re serious.”

  She did not answer, but stoically gazed out across the water.

  “Calin, I know there’s an awful lot I don’t understand. But you’re going to have to explain this to me. Are you afraid you can’t go back?”

  Tears misted over her voice. “I can never go back. When the Saecaraz discover what I have done, I will be erased. And the Tanais will not allow me to stay—I am a Saecaraz magician!”

  She sounded so forlorn that Treet put his arm around her shoulders and held her to him. “Look, nobody is going to erase you.” He realized how silly that sounded, but he was sincere. “I really don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

  Actually, there was plenty to worry about, as Treet well knew. The deaths of the two Nilokerus and his own disappearance would not, in all likelihood, establish him further in the Supreme Director’s good graces. Calin had a point: they couldn’t go back.

  Without his knowing it, he had booked them on a one-way flight. No return. Treet thought about this for a moment as he stood with his arms around the frightened magician. Then, as there was nothing he could do about any of it, he shrugged and held Calin out at arm’s length. “I won’t let anything happen to you, okay?” She pulled away and went to stand by the rail.